Jim Blackhurst has one of those cool, nerdy jobs. He works for video games publisher Square Enix and is responsible for analyzing anonymous game data.

One of Blackhurst's tasks has focused on creating maps using kill data from the game Just Cause 2. He took 22.3 million data points and plotted them into the detailed kill map shown above. All those white areas on the map have the highest number of kills and are places you definitely want to avoid.

Blackhurst took the model one step further and extended the data into the 3D plane to create a topographical map of kills. Right now all this processing is done internally for Square Enix but imagine how the game would change if you could tap into this data and overlay a kill map while you choose which building to enter or which hill to climb. [Jim Blackhurst via Fast Company